Category Archives: Healthcare

Public officials and media worldwide have paid considerable attention recently to developments around the H7N9 influenza, which, according to officials in China where the outbreak started, has killed 7 people and infected 24 others, most of whom suffered mild flu-like symptoms.  The virus is known to come from birds, like SARS back in 2003, but  Continue Reading »

A new study of 500,000 kids and teens in 51 countries discovered that eating a fast-food meal three or more times per week increases the likelihood of developing asthma by 30 percent for six- and seven-year-olds and 40 percent for thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds. Also, members of the study’s group that ate fast foods were more  Continue Reading »

Doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia reported this week that they had cured a 6-year-old girl of recurrent leukemia that chemotherapy had failed to treat. The doctors altered a strain of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), so that instead of giving the girl AIDS, it would reprogram her immune system DNA to fight leukemia on  Continue Reading »

“Type 3 diabetes”?   That is what some researchers are calling a new connection between Alzheimer’s and diabetes discovered during research from Rhode Island Hospital.  Interfering with her lab animals’ insulin uptake, researcher Suzanne de la Monte not only triggered obesity in the animals but a disorientation that signaled dementia.  Poor sensitivity to insulin is  Continue Reading »

According to Nikhil Tandon, an endocrinologist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, pound for pound, Indians have less lean mass, more body fat and more central fat than white Caucasians. In 2011, India had 62.4 million people with type-2 diabetes. In 2010, the number was 50.8 million. With more than a twenty percent  Continue Reading »